WESLEY READ ME - Shayna Russell Laura Hubbard Anthro R5B...

Shayna Russell Laura Hubbard – Anthro R5B South Park Laughs in the Face of Danger The self consciously offensive adult cartoon, South Park, ignites a political flame underneath the butts of its viewers. Through dissonant politics, but also through use of 2D animation, South Park declares itself to be reaction based, a caricature reflection of society; it is reaction based in that it does not provide answers to social questions but rather reacts to illuminate the social question itself. “The show debuted in 1997 and quickly became Comedy Central’s flagship Program 1 ”(coming of age, 4) The series, notorious for its crass and sass, deals with a vast array of social issues while narrating “the boys” interaction with the rest of the town. “The boys” consist of Stan Marsh, the normal kid, Kyle Broflovski, the Jew, Eric Cartman, the selfish fat kid, and Kenny McCormick, the token, timid, death prone kid. With its own dissonant political agenda hidden underneath a delicate veil of farts, queefs, and other toilet humor, South Park successfully and humorously prods at social norms and cultural stereotypes. By definition, dissonance does not mean neutrality; dissonance, as defined by this essay, is inconsistent ideals of a preexisting body. Polar stances to arguments allow for the discussion to be zoomed in on and create humor. As long as the argument itself is recognized, that is, I feel, the long-term goal of the show. Humor 2 is inherently pervasive, persuasive, and effectively pleasant. In each show, there is an argument concerning a current event that is identified and magnified in a humorous way. This media form buffers opposing opinions, exemplified in blogs; everyone is on the inside of South Park’s jokes and that is why it is successful. 1 South Park is one of the most popular shows on cable television, with a persisting viewer average between 3.5 and 5.5 million viewers each week. 2 defined by John C. Meyer in the article Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication in the Communication Theory journal

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Episode 147, Make Love, Not Warcraft season 10 episode 8, exploits the contemporary social view that online worlds do not encompass humanity and emotion. WoW, World of Warcraft, is the online world in question. A griefer , a wordless, compulsive obese adult “who has absolutely no life,” named Jenkins repeatedly kills the boys' avatars in the online world. His explicit participation in WoW, thus implying his lack of participation in the actual world, has led him to “play” nearly every minute of every day for a year and a half since the game’s release. He has reached a level that was previously thought unreachable, allowing him to disobey Blizzard Entertainment 's rules and kill players, Game Masters and Administrators at will - something the game's developers did not anticipate. Stan's father, Randy , becomes unsuccessfully involved in the game, proving online worlds to be a facet of youth identity. Cartman

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